the virtuous among us
by jivewise
Summary: What's wrong with a little destruction? (Loki presents an epic of dastardly devotion.)


Loki falls.

Correction.

Loki falls _for a very long time_.

/

It isn't so bad at first, relatively speaking.

Most of it is lost to screaming and raging and wondering why nothing goes his way, not even something as simple as letting go. Despite having just tidily demolished a realm, it seems like eons before he is done recounting all the wrongs the realms have done _him_.

And when the hush in his thoughts finally presses in, and everything fades into cramps and aches and yearning for a taste or touch not of the void — that is when he begins to wonder whether it _has_ worked, whether this path past all the branches in Yggdrasil's tree is the one others tread before him on their way to Hel.

As the last of the debris from the Bifrost swirls away from him, after weeks of hanging on, he thinks, _yes, finally — rest_. This is something he can call _victory_.

He learns better.

/

He learns:

1\. That he isn't sure he what he intended by falling, anymore. His armor is a husk and its hollowness is hard to fill in the wake of things he'd felt so strongly, before.

2\. His body disintegrating had seemed more likely than not, at the beginning. Now its resilience would be hilarious, if it weren't such a pity.

and

3\. As a god, it doesn't make much sense to believe in _even higher_ gods. But nothing makes sense lately, so whyever should he not?

/

The timing is convenient concerning that last one, he grudgingly supposes.

As dull as all the stars in the cosmos laid out before him become, by the time they show up, he doesn't _think_ he's so far gone as to have been imagining it when the pinpricks of light bleed, spread, and grow blinding.

However, he can't say he's _sure_.

His momentum, though he's forgotten he even has any, halts. Vertigo hits moments after, and he scrabbles for balance on atrophied legs, though there is no surface for his feet to find purchase on — so he trips to his knees, because he can't do much more than tremble. If not for the shock, he would be almost grateful for the burning sensation in his eyes. _Pathetic_.

 _ **SMALL GOD,**_ booms a voice.

Clutching his head in his hands, he doesn't hear the words so much as feel them echo in his bones.

 _ **KNOW US.**_

 _As if I have a choice_ , he thinks disbelievingly, trying not to cough up bile. Indistinct shapes made of impossible shadows begin to take form before him, blurry through all the tears. They look Aesir, with silhouettes of mantles and armor and horns. He can't tell which one is speaking, so he makes the agonizing effort of facing the one who most resembles Odin All-Father.

Seems fitting, if he is to receive some sort of judgement. He can almost face it fondly.

 _ **WE ARE HUNGRY** ,_ the voice goes on, _**WE WHO SIT ABOVE IN THE SHADOWS. WE WHO SET FORTH THE GREAT CYCLE. WE WHO REAP OF THY LIFE AND THY DEATH**._

 _Death?_

"Good one," he says, too breathless to imply otherwise. Weeks — months? — of shouting into the void pays off. His words sound rough, but come easily. "Dare I ask, what is there precisely to _reap_?"

 _ **CARRION FEEDS THE CROW. BLOOD IS FORFEIT TO THE KING. SO IT HAS EVER BEEN.**_

Well… that sounds just lovely. Even in his bilgesnipe hunting days, _getting eaten alive_ is the last way he expected to die.

Though it does seem far more likely than _falling off the Bifrost and floating around space for the rest of your unnatural life_.

"Can't say much for your palate," Loki finally says. "I'm hardly seasoned."

There's a pause after that, some vague holding of the breath. Perhaps he is projecting.

 _ **THAT MAY BE SO.**_

"Yes, of course. We Aesir ripen with age. However… hunger is so very _plebeian_ , I understand." He runs his dry tongue over his cracked lips, just to make sure some semblance of him is still there. He isn't quite sure why they are entertaining him the notion of survival. "If it's all that unbearable, any rot will do."

After more silence, the shades rove around him like a swarm of mosquitos conferring, contemplating where the blood is sweetest. He forces himself not to look away though it is hard to focus, with the buzzing growing louder, the sound cutting through his muscles and skin and sinew to the heart of him, and as if he's been blind all his life before he _sees_ —

 _voices clashing like the tides of war_

 _seafoam exploding with the force of a super nova_

 _surging cooled blood and gore_

 _twilight glinting off blades and bones_

 _and falling and falling_

 _and falling_

 _ **NO NEED TO BE DRAMATIC. A BEGINNING WROUGHT FROM AN END. YOU SIMPLY DO NOT REMEMBER**._

— he can't breathe —

 _ **VERY WELL, SMALL GOD. WE ARE PATIENT. WE CAN WAIT. RIPEN. BRING US BETTER STORIES. BRING THEM ALL.**_

And before he can decipher what they mean — the shadows fade and the white void disappears as suddenly as it arrived. Those Who Sit Above are no more.

In their place return the stars, the steadiness of their shine a solace to his painfully stuttering heart.

/

He wants to be rational about the whole thing. If it ever happened.

It takes him a while to gather his suspicions, but it isn't like he doesn't have plenty of time to spare. Falling is now a habit he feels used to having.

But time doesn't really help answer the questions wracking him. _Those Who Sit Above in the Shadows_. Powerful enough to find him, a speck lost in stardust, and alter reality so instantaneously and completely… What is their true purpose? Why him? And calling _him_ dramatic?

It couldn't have simply been with the intention of consuming his corpse. Jotun runts are short on nutrition, probably, let alone a satisfying snack. He'd be a superfluous addition to that kind of power. And the sheer absurdity of that power makes him want to take a nap, like it might be less real if he ever wakes up from — whatever it was that happened. Or didn't happen.

 _It was a nightmare,_ he decides, finally. _A strange one._

And to believe it a delusion — well, it _is_ less far-fetched to think so, despite how real it may have seemed.

/

He wants to be rational about the whole thing. If it ever happened.

So he gathers his suspicions again. And again, and again. Until —

/

He lands.

More accurately: he is caught in the gravitational pull of a gargantuan severed head, an eldritch horror of sorts turned cosmic colony. He hasn't been paying attention lately, so when he hits the surface, finally, the impact is a surprise, is _hard_ — and the only thing that keeps his bones from shattering is that he did so in a bright pool of primordial goop.

Naturally, that is where the Norns find him.

He should be grateful, probably, but they're a dismal omen at best and he is still getting over that rough landing. The smell is positively horrendous.

Unperturbed, the sisters circle him swiftly, stern and nothing like Frigga, for all her affinity for their arts. They float above the surface of the pool like it is nothing, unbothered by his state. As he treads the horrid liquid, sluggishly paddling his arms, it takes more effort than it's worth to peer up at them and wait.

One of them — Verdandi, he guesses, _no time like the present_ — moves closer. Her skin, ebony indigo and draped in thick silks, make the whites of her eyes stand out.

 _A delusion_ , he reminds himself.

But she doesn't speak. The three stand like sentinels. Like Heimdall, and no less impassive.

Strange. Even for a delusion. As far as he knows, the infamous Norns don't often go about gallivanting in space to meet with people. _He_ certainly never had any intention of meeting them, though his presence in a pool of — well, _liquid_ , the tales never said it had to be water — while pondering the workings of the universe may have been misinterpreted.

Maybe they're simply bored.

 _Best get on with it, then._

"Not that it isn't a pleasure. To what do I owe it?"

Actually, he doesn't really want to know.

 _"Loki — Odinson —"_

The lines around the hag's mouth twitch, her words a hiss of humid steam that curls itself around his face. It is impressive that its putridity even blips on his radar, all things considered.

 _"We have come to show you what once was — what is coming into being — and what has yet to come to pass."_

He licks his lips, ignoring that there is a thick layer of brain fuel covering him. It tastes acrid and he hardly minds that it burns his throat on its way down. "To what end?"

 _"To the end of ends."_

The Norn pauses after that. The stillness of space suits them, and he is sure they know so.

 _"What would you trade to see?"_

It takes some moments for the words to sink in. Meanwhile, he stares at Verdandi and Skuld and Urd, whom of all beings in the nine realms have found him long after he's been falling and falling and — _Are they_ mocking _me? Do they not see that I have long been at_ my _end?_

And even if he wants to _see_ , he can't bring himself to think overlong on the visions brought by _that_ vision, courtesy of Those Who Sit Above. He is a monster, his family has abandoned him and — there is nothing left he cares to know.

Except...

Suddenly, a spindly wretched limb reaches out to drag him up enough to sputter. " _Don't drown, boy,"_ the witch says, breaking protocol for the first time to do so.

The youngest of them, healthy and fit, adds doubtfully, _"Not yet, at least."_

He hadn't realized he's been holding his breath. "It's not that I don't appreciate the offer," he says, ignoring Urd and Skuld. "I just don't want to take you up on it."

 _"You have reason to fear the past,"_ says the old one. She probably means to sound shrewd, but to Loki she is only stating the obvious. She lets go of his arm. _"In it are the makings of your future."_

"Ah, let me guess. You are here to tell me, 'do not despair — hope still remains'?"

There is an awkward silence. Skuld's strikes him especially pitying.

…well, he isn't sure what he was expecting.

"Then no, thank you, _wenches_ ," he says, stiffly, "I would much rather just—"

Something pricks him in the neck and he is out like a light before he can get another word out.

/

Later, one half of him counts it fortunate he could not.

The other half knows that they had seen it all coming, and shudder.

/

/

/

 **author's note:** so i've been mulling over writing this for ages and figured i'd give it a go! the title is from franz ferdinand's _the fallen_ and a few lines of dialogue are borrowed from _agent of asgard #17_. this is more of a prologue than proper chapter. i'd love to know what you think!


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